Beach 2 Battleship

Bri and I will head down to Wilmington/Wrightsville Beach to watch the Beach 2 Battleship triathlons this weekend. There is a full and a half (Iron-distance). We have a few athletes racing so it will be fun to go in full cheer / support mode. I enjoy the beach if you didn't already know that, and Wilmington is a nice town to hang out in.

If you previously ordered the Powerstroke DVD, it shipped yesterday. Everything is good to go. I am working on a few avenues to have it distributed & promoted, we shall see how that endeavor goes.

This week was a tough one for running. On Tuesday we did a short AM 1.7m run (the Tassie loop, named after you know who), and followed it up with a PM 7 miler with 8 x 2 minute fast / 2 min easy. My legs were lead and Bri dusted me on the intervals. The last 3 were OK which is good. On Wednesday we did an easy 3 miler (the Big Tassie loop). Thursday we did a 7.6 miler with 4 miles up-tempo. I felt solid here and was able to keep Bri from breaking away, until the final uphill in Umstead State Park.

Tomorrow we'll do an easy 3 miler on "The Loop" in Wrightsville, then a long run on Sunday morning. That would be 30+ which is not too shabby for this kid.

2010 goals

I have been thinking about my 2010 racing goals. This year went very well - three 1st places is not too shabby! My motivation at this point is also much better than it was at the beginning of 2009. To some extent I was stressed about making the Powerstroke freestyle technique DVD all spring and summer, and having that particular project done and looking good frees me up to focus my intellect or lack thereof on other things. So I am debating goals for '10:

Sub 2-hour olympic distance
Sub 4:20 half IM
Top 5 finish in the NCTS series
Serious competition in 2 or 3 standalone open water events.

The open water events will be fun to get back into. I will hit up some of the other masters teams to train since I coach most of the TAC-OSB sessions and doing hard swim workouts by myself is not my bag.

My current selection:

March: Wrightsville Beach half-marathon
April: St Anthonys Triathlon
May: Low Country Splash 2.4 mile swim
June: Kure Beach

Powerstroke lecture preview

Regarding the three main types of freestyle mechanics:
Weakest: elbow slip
Better: straight arm
Best: high elbow catch / early vertical foream

fast week

I didn't have much to write about this week so decided to skip the inanities. I still don't have much to say today. The Powerstroke DVD is at the shop getting some technical menu bugs worked out and hopefully they finish it tomorrow and then we can send it to the production shop for production and fulfillment. It looks really good and I'm happy with how it all turned out.

In December we've been given the opportunity to reshoot the lecture portion at a professional studio with $$$ cameras and mics. Our current lecture presents great information but we had some mic interference that we weren't able to engineer out of the movie. This is what you get when you use an inexpensive wireless system.

We ran in the March of Dimes Run for Babies 5k over in Morrisville this morning - Bri stomped the heck out of me with an 18:45. I felt OK but suffered on the uphills and ran a 19:50. Going to be a good challenge to get back to low 18 or high 17 by March, but consistent speedwork, tempo runs, and long runs should make it a reality.

Next weekend we're off to Jacksonville FL to hang with sis in law and her fella for Halloween and some sort of football game.

Order the Powerstroke DVD. Tell your friends. The Powerstroke: Speed through force and form DVD loves you and wants to live in your home with you and your wonderful family. How can you reject the Powerstroke DVD? It just wants to be your friend.

Powerstroke-ing it

I have gone into crunch mode here at Powerstroke headquarters, shutting myself up in the office and only emerging for food and other human bodily functions. Just when you thought you had everything figured out, you noticed the excessive pixelation in your Livetype fonts when they were imported into Final Cut Express and then exported as a movie file? Why is that? Ah because you were using the rendered movie files from Livetype when all you need to do is import the livetype file itself. DUH! Anyone could have told you that!

Good thing you only have to re-enter the livetype files where appropriate and then re-export the movies. The movie exports can take a while because these things are huge. I bought a terabyte hard drive a few months ago to handle it all.

Waiting to hear when my local DVD guru and editor can take everything off my hands and turn into a finished product.

That is all.

homeward bound

Today Tassie and I spent all day inside the house. I take that back. I spent all day inside the house, Tassie went in the backyard to hunt birds and squirrels periodically.

I was glued to the computer...final editing for our Powerstroke: Speed through force and form DVD. I am actually nearly done with everything at this point - just a couple more edits and voiceovers for stroke analysis, then we send it to a local production company to put a nice DVD menu together and perhaps fancy a couple things up. My chum Bill Payne has already designed the DVD cover and labeling. It will rock.

You should buy at least one of these most excellent DVDs, if not one for you and every member of your family.

Here is a preview of what the DVD includes:

Part 1) 30 minute lecture and Q&A: What is Powerstroke?

Part 2) 27 minute analysis - the Three Types of Swim Strokes for Freestyle and how to improve:
Type 1: Elbow slip
Type 2) Straight arm pull
Type 3) High elbow catch / early vertical forearm

Part 3) 15 minute explanation & analysis - Powerstroke as a drill, stroke form, and way of swimming

Part 4) Additional drills & voice over explanation analysis (1 hour):
- Catch up drill
- 1-arm drill
- Fist drill
- Techpaddle (drill)
- Sculling
- 6-kick on side rotation drill
- Doggy paddle drill

Part 5) Dryland stretches and supplementary exercises

It is more than two hours, part of the reason it has taken me a couple years from conception to completion to get it done. I did not want to outsource production and distribution, so we could call it our baby.

If you work in the triathlon or swim fitness industry and would like to stock it, let me know. Please help spread the word.